Is this Your Purpose?

As self-reflective beings, the question of purpose can feel central, yet strangely elusive. 

Why Am I here? 

What am I supposed to be doing? 

Do I have a purpose?

I spent over a decade deeply investigating these questions in myself and others.

That journey led me into co-founding an organisation in America called ‘Pinpoint Your Purpose’ after noting how many people were feeling lost and directionless. 

I eventually concluded that purpose may be one of the most misunderstood ideas in our culture.

I used to wonder, is my purpose to be the co-founder of a cancer charity, to be the leader of a self development community, to be a healer, a guide, a musician… the list went on. 

Until one day I went to the one place that I have found most useful to find answers to my most perplexing questions: Nature. 

One day I was sitting in the afternoon sun in Texas, looking out across a property filled with mighty oak trees. I leant down and picked up an acorn from the grass beside me.

I looked back to one particularly grand oak.

Two Golden-cheeked warblers nested among its branches. A fox squirrel darted through the canopy. I considered the countless insects living beneath its bark. Its canopy cast welcome shade across the dry earth below. As I inhaled the warm air, I realised I was breathing oxygen that had passed through its leaves.

I looked back down at the tiny acorn.

Was the purpose of this acorn:

To provide shade?

To shelter a bird? 

To feed a squirrel?

To cool the earth?

To provide timber?

It  was none of these.

These gifts were all by-products of it fulfilling its true purpose:

To express the fullness of its oak nature.

That’s when it hit me.

My purpose is not to do anything.

It’s to express the fullness of my own nature.

And to trust that as a by-product of that,

I will naturally be in service to my ecosystem. 

The oak never stresses about what its purpose is, or what it is here to do.

It simply continues to express the fullness of its nature. 

Whether the acorn becomes a mighty oak or a struggling sapling depends greatly on how it is cultivated, on the conditions in which it grows.

The same is true of us. 

What differentiates us as humans is that we are both tree and gardener. 

We are born with our natural potential. We are then responsible for its cultivation. 

This is both our gift and our burden.

Our choices and the quality of our attention 

either cultivate our nature,

or neglect it. 

The tree does not become more productive by force, 

It responds to care. 

Our task is not to force ourselves to become something that we are not.

It is to create the conditions in which our own nature can unfold. 

Our purpose is not to bear fruit. It is to flourish.

But when we truly flourish, we will bear fruit. 

Until next time,

Peace and love,

Alex